NOAA's 'Arctic Report Card' is out

NOAA: Temperature increases, a near-record loss of summer sea ice, and a melting of surface ice in Greenland are among some of the evidence of continued warming in the Arctic, according to an annual review of conditions in the Arctic issued today by NOAA and its university, agency, and international partners.

“Changes in the Arctic show a domino effect from multiple causes more clearly than in other regions,” said James Overland, an oceanographer at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle and a lead author of the report. “It’s a sensitive system and often reflects changes in relatively fast and dramatic ways.”

One example of these changes in arctic climate is the autumn air temperatures which are at a record 5 degrees C (9 degrees F) above normal, because of the major loss of sea ice in recent years. The loss of sea ice allows more solar heating of the ocean. That warming of the air and ocean affects land and marine life, and reduces the amount of winter sea ice that lasts into the following summer. The year 2007 was the warmest on record for the Arctic, continuing a general Arctic-wide warming trend that began in the mid-1960s.

The Arctic Report Card, a product introduced by NOAA’s Climate Program Office in 2006, establishes a baseline of conditions in that region in the 21st century and provides a way of monitoring the often quickly changing conditions. It is updated annually in October and tracks the Arctic atmosphere, sea ice, biology, ocean, land and Greenland....

Traveling by reindeer, Archangel, Russia